Well, here we are on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s not really resonating with me this year, but we’re gonna press forward regardless. Just gonna tell you now: I’m going full RIP today. Sit down, Butcher.
Warning: This is wrenching. And fuck Putin.
Never, ever, ever forget.
Two years ago, they voted against impeachment. Now suddenly they’re deeply concerned for Ukraine
Emphasis mine. All else is quotes.
Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s emotional appeal to Congress and President Joe Biden to help his country defend itself against Russia, top Republican leaders did the only thing they could think to do: use their cheering of Zelenskyy as cover to attack Biden.
Despite dressing their attacks on Biden in the language of support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine, Republicans didn’t exactly hide the real point. “The longer President Biden waits, trying to figure out excuses to not offend Putin, it’s costing lives in Ukraine,” said House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, the day after Russia announced sanctions on Biden and a slate of other Democrats, but no Republicans, and just over two years after he and every other Republican, with the exception of Sen. Mitt Romney, voted against impeaching Donald Trump for withholding military aid from Ukraine to extort political favors.
When you’re going straight to “excuses not to offend Putin,” you’re making it clear where your interests lie, and it’s not sincerely with the Ukrainian people.
Incoming asshole alert.
Stop buying from these companies. They’re funding Putin’s war.
Those who want to stop Russia’s murderous attack against Ukraine should stop investing in or buying the products of these companies.
Koch Industries, whose owners gave to right-wing causes for years, is now financing Putin’s war. The people who make Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Vanity Fair napkins and Georgia-Pacific lumber are abetting the spilling of Ukrainians’ blood.
Like Reebok shoes? They’re being used to stomp on Ukraine. Authentic Brands Group, which also owns Aeropostale, Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers and Nine West, among others, is in the hall of shame.
Before you bite into a Cinnabon (or Carvel ice cream, Schlotzsky’s sandwich or Auntie Anne’s pretzel) consider that parent company Focus Brands is taking a bite out of democracy in Ukraine.
So is Subway. While selling you the All-American Club, it’s giving Ukrainians the Cold-Cock Combo by refusing to cut loose its 446 Russian franchises.
Several other household brands — Truvia and Diamond Crystal salt (Cargill), Avon cosmetics (Natura), LG appliances, ASUS laptops, Mission tortillas (Gruma) and Pirelli tires — are produced by companies on the shameful list.
Are you or your mutual fund invested in Halliburton, Baker Hughes or Schlumberger? Then you should know that these oil-services companies could deal a huge blow to Putin’s ability to wage war — but they choose profit instead.
Let’s name and shame all the others among the 33: Advertising firms BBDO, DDB and Omnicom; accountant Baker Tilly; industrial companies Air Liquide, Air Products, Greif, IPG Photonics, Linde, Mettler Toledo, Nalco and Rockwool; French hotelier Accor and retailers Auchan, Decathlon and Leroy Merlin; German wholesaler Metro; cloud service Cloudflare; International Paper; and Sweden’s Oriflame Cosmetics.
Another 72 multinationals have made only partial pullbacks from Russia, such as reducing current operations or holding off on new investments — actions Sonnenfeld calls “very questionable” and “smokescreens.” Included here: Dunkin Donuts, General Mills, Mondelez (Oreos and other Nabisco products), candymaker Mars, Procter & Gamble, Yum Brands (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott.
All these businesses could be doing more to stop Putin’s savagery and war crimes. Because they won’t, we all should do more to stop them. Go to Sonnenfeld’s website via Yale’s School of Management to make sure you aren’t funding the businesses that are funding Putin’s war machine — and reward the vast majority of companies that share Zelensky’s belief that peace is more important than profit.
Stonks! It’s almost like the Fed doing their job is a good thing.
Stocks Close Sharply Higher as Fed Raises Interest Rates
U.S. stocks rocketed higher in a volatile session and bond yields jumped to the highest level in almost three years after the Federal Reserve officially said it would raise interest rates for the first time since 2018.
Major indexes rallied at the open, pared their gains after the Fed announcement and then raced to finish the session near their highs of the day.
Sprots. The Washington who? Also, anybody that claims that sports franchises help communities is a liar.
As the Washington Commanders consider leaving behind their Prince George’s home, local leaders are pleading for Maryland not to neglect their neighborhoods once again.
“I’m asking you to think about what was done 25 years ago with our current stadium and ensure that we don’t do it again,” Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) told state legislators this week, pointing out that FedEx Field opened in 1997 “with no infrastructure to sustain it and no infrastructure to benefit the surrounding community.”
Oh, hell, no.
Florida man accused of stealing 18 turtles worth $30,000 from breeder while fixing his fridge
The owner of Turtle Source in southwest Florida first knew something was wrong when his office pet Huncy was missing.
Florida repairman was arrested for stealing $30,000 worth of turtles from a breeder after he was called out to fix a beverage cooler.
Jermaine Wofford, 47, was allegedly spotted on surveillance footage taking up to 18 rare turtles from Turtle Source in Estero, south of Fort Myers.
Owner Marcus Cantos told Wink News he had a “sick, sick feeling” after noticing an office turtle named Huncy was missing. He then realised more than a dozen turtles were missing.
Mr Cantos said he had called the repairman to his store to fix a fridge.
The turtle breeder said he noticed some turtles were missing after the first time Mr Wofford came to the store, but didn’t immediately make the connection.
He checked store cameras, and saw Mr Wofford allegedly removing the turtles.
Mr Wofford claimed he had needed to pick up parts, and when he returned to the store, he was arrested by Lee County Sheriff’s deputies.
“The camera is right up here, not hard to see, and the guy looked right in the camera, and that’s how the sheriff’s department was able to use the facial recognition, and he was just helping himself to all of these,” Mr Cantos told Wink News.
He warned business owners to carefully check the credentials of trade staff.
Lee County Sheriff’s Office deputies were able to recover five of the 18 stolen turtles from a house in Hillsborough County.
Mr Wofford is in custody on a $50,000 bond.
Okay, my little Deadsplinterers. That’s what’s on my mind. Whadda you got?
A turtle-napping! I went to Hawaii once and we stayed at this pretty remote, high-end resort so while I was physically in Hawaii I didn’t get to see much. The resort had this barricaded section of beach where there was a turtle colony, off-limits to we oafish, intruding bipeds. Every morning I would stroll over there and behind the fence say hello to its king, this massive specimen who, I was told, was at least 80 years old and possibly even older than that. Sometimes there would be other turtles in attendance. I’ve never forgotten it. Such noble creatures, so stoic, so deliberate, not given to hysteria, unlike Faithful Hound when there is food or walks in the offing.
Honu (Hawaiian for turtle) are protected on all islands. They will close entire beaches that are super popular tourist beaches & have serious fines for violating. Last trip I took my wife snorkeling, she wanted to see turtles & bumped into one that snuck up on her. She freaked out since he was about 3 feet wide. When surfing I learned that if turtles kept hanging around me it was a bad sign. They would try to lessen the odds of getting eaten by a tiger shark by throwing me in the mix.
I have two turtle stories –
Many years ago I was working on a film in Southport, NC. I took my dog to walk on the beach one night and silhouetted against the moon out in the water was what looked like a man swimming. I thought it was a little crazy but we passed by and continued our walk. On the way back, the man was gone but we ran across some crazy patterns in the sand. I followed them to a giant loggerhead building her nest. I took my dog back to the condo I was staying at and grabbed a blanket. I spent the entire night watching that huge turtle build her nest and laying her eggs – a very safe distance away, of course. Around dawn, she turned around and headed back into the sea. It was amazing. Those loggerheads are huge.
Also, I had a massage therapist that was also the massage therapist for the Gore family – yes, Al Gore. They had a house on Figure 8 Island in Wilmington, NC and would book my person for a whole week when they were there. One night, Al woke everyone up and made them go to the beach. Apparently, a bunch of baby turtles had hatched and were going the wrong way because they were confused by the lights on the island. He and his family spent the entire night rounding up the baby turtles and putting them down close to the water so they could get out to sea. Every time someone mentions something crappy about Al Gore – I bring up this story.
Wow, @Lymond, those are both outstanding!
My wife and I watched a hawksbill turtle lay her eggs on Sanibel Island. We were joined by a German couple and we all stood there in awe. A thunderstorm rolled in and we had to leave, or we probably would have stayed there all night.
This was pre-cellphone-cameras, so no photographic evidence exists. I really regret that.
Somebody takes my office turtle, shit will get REAL.
Hunchy (original article misspelled his name) has been recovered.
https://fb.watch/bOTcuZCej6/
This is an interesting video.
Thank goodness!
“Economic devastation if they leave?”
Let them go and knock down the stadium and parking lots for development. Football teams that use a stadium *maybe* 12 days a year if they make the playoffs are historically far worse anchors than adding housing and well integrated retail and entertainment that gets used 365 days a year.
Exactly.
I can’t even write this coherently because as a New York State taxpayer I’m so outraged. The state is chipping in $1 BILLION so that Terry Pegula (net worth $5.7 billion; made his money from oil and gas) can build a new stadium for his Buffalo Bills. And I think I read this new albatross won’t be roofed. Average annual snowfall in Buffalo: 93.4 inches.
Part of the argument was that Buffalo is New York’s second largest city so… More fun facts: Population of Buffalo: 256,000 (metro 1.126 million.) Population of New York’s largest city? 8.4 million (probably higher) with a metro population of over 20 million.
We already had a Buffalo Billion scheme under Cuomo, most of which was lost through fraud and failure. There were a few prison sentences handed out, including one or two people very close to Cuomo, despite Cuomo being Governor, that’s how bad it was. But our new Governor is an old ward-heeler from suburban Buffalo, and besides, in New York State $1 billion is just a rounding error.
Dammit, I forgot this guy as part of my asshole roundup:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>I understand times are hard, but doesn’t the President of the <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ukraine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Ukraine</a> own a suit? I don’t have much respect for current members of the U.S. Congress either, but I still wouldn’t address them wearing a t-shirt. I wouldn’t want to disrespect the institution or the Unites States.</p>— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) <a href=”https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1504082706598146058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 16, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
If you’ve got all day, the replies are GREAT. But pack a lunch, ’cause this stupid fuck got ratioed all to hell.
Sorry, I need to get Meg to show me how to properly embed tweets.
…I think what you want is just the bit from https: to the numbers in that second to last part that looks like a link…which I think is what you get if you use the “copy link to tweet” option although that tacks on the ? & the garbage after that tells twitter where you pulled the link from or whatever they want to know without asking…so I generally delete that part but I don’t think it makes a difference to the embedding side of things
…then (despite what myo says about the failings of the comment section) it should bed itself by magic?
…if I’m right then this should work
Thanks. Now everybody can clearly see this putz showing his ass. One response:
…if it makes you feel any better I generally avoided twitter for long enough that I wasn’t aware the “copy link to tweet” option existed until relatively recently…so I used to copy the link that lurks under the timestamp
…I think it’s the same…but I know sometimes twitter notices you’re on a phone & puts a “mobile” into the URL that buggers up the auto-embed thing…so it took me a while to settle on what seemed to work?
Most accurate and succinct Tweet reply to Schiff “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Dude kept doubling and tripling down on his stupidity.
First rule when you’re in a hole: Stop digging.
Second rule: Delete your dumbass tweet about holes.
“I understand…”
NO YOU DON’T.
On the flip side Washington Post political reporter Ashley Parker is getting slammed today for denegrating Biden for wearing a suit while Zelensky wore a shirt.
The stock response of politics beat reporters for why they don’t include honest reporting about the GOP’s long history of screwing over Ukraine in these articles is some tortured rationale about it not being news.
But then you see obsession about clothing counting as news?
During the battle of Ia Drang aka “We Were Soldiers” Battle in 1965. General Westy Westmoreland ordered Colonel Hal Moore out of the battle so MACV (Military Ass-istance Command, Vietnam aka him) could be briefed on the battle. Moore wisely ignored the order as it occurred during a key moment in the survival of the 7th Cavalry.
Peter Schiff is part of that amazing American tradition of placing optics ahead of practicality/reality.
Awkward. Makes that drive home from the beach with a girl who just broke up with me seem almost insignificant.
US astronaut still plans to ride Russian spacecraft home during tensions
U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei has made it through nearly a year in space, but faces what could be his trickiest assignment yet: riding a Russian capsule back to Earth in the midst of deepening tensions between the countries.
NASA insists Vande Hei’s homecoming plans at the end of the month remain unchanged, even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in canceled launches, broken contracts and an escalating war of words by the Russian Space Agency’s hardline leader. Many worry Dmitry Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-the-planet partnership at risk, most notably at the International Space Station.
Vande Hei — who on Tuesday breaks the U.S. single spaceflight record of 340 days — is due to leave with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30. The astronaut will have logged 355 days in space by then, setting a new U.S. record. The world record of 438 continuous days in space belongs to Russia.
Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, America’s record-holder until Tuesday, is among those sparring with Rogozin, a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin. Enraged by what’s going on in Ukraine, Kelly has returned his Russian medal for space exploration to the Russian Embassy in Washington.
This has nothing to do with the color green or the Irish, but it’s cute as hell.
I still have trauma from dealing with St Patrick’s Day in Chicago, so I don’t celebrate.
And if you try to come for my turtles, you better come heavy or not at all.
Oh, and one of the gates on the West pasture must have got open, because when I stepped out this morning there were 30 sheep loitering in my yard. Fortunately, Argo the Border Collie was nearby and he lives for this kind of thing. He sprang into action and had them all back where they belong in no time.
Argo opened that gate in the first place, didn’t he?
Considering he also got a nice piece of salmon jerky afterward, it makes sense.
I love, love, love, your animal photos. Argo is a very good dog, yes he is. In spoiled city dog news, it was raining torrential-type rains this morning and no dogs would go out (hooray for pee pads).
That is one smart pooch. Any of my dogs would have just run amok annoying sheep not herding them.